Muratori, Prolegomena to De oratione, and Panciroli's preface to the reader

Second series.

Dogmatic books

[written] before the author embraced Montanism.

On Prayer. On Baptism. On Penance. On Patience. To His Wife, Books I–II. On the Apparel of Women, Books I–II.

Of Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian

The Book on Prayer.

Prolegomena.

We count very many printed books of Tertullian, but few manuscript ones in the libraries. Hence it has come about that not even yet do we have his works set down in type with full accuracy: some have come out in public mutilated and bristling with foul wounds; some, too, are missing which we know were published by Tertullian, but which we both suspect

and lament [as] wholly snatched from us by the voracity of time. The book On Prayer has not so far enjoyed better fortunes; it was first of all published at Paris from a very old codex by Jean Gagnée, theologian of Paris, in the year of Christ 1545, but by no means whole, but lacking its illustrious conclusion. Nor did the remaining editions that followed bring help to this one, for want of codices. Rigault alone noticed that the old codex was a mutilated book, and, having added only a few lines at the end, left the remedy for others to administer. Since, therefore, I have come upon

an ancient codex of the Ambrosian Library, in which were read the things that are lacking in the others, I at once added to my unpublished pieces, as jewels especially welcome to the republic of letters. For how highly all who cultivate ecclesiastical learning value whatever was committed to writing by Tertullian, certainly the most learned of all men of his time, and especially what he wrote in the camp of the Catholics, is plain even to beginners. The Ambrosian codex, however, began the little work not with the exposition of the Lord's Prayer, as we have it in the printed editions, but with the matter that follows such an exposition, under this title: Here begins Tertullian's [book] of divers necessary matters. Then the first chapter, whose beginning is "By a compendium of a very few words", etc., was headed thus: Anacephalaeosis. "That we may add over and above" was the title of the following chapter. The remaining chapters also bore their titles, which we have likewise judged should be kept in this edition of ours. As for the rest, it has been decided now to adorn and illustrate this little work with annotations, so that what most learned men have done for the other books of Tertullian may not be lacking to this one, and so that certain over-delicate people, pleading the obscurities and the iron, rough style of this writer, may not be turned away from reading him. In short, you could show no author among the ancient Christians to whom the lights of learning and of scholia seem more needful to be brought than to Tertullian, by whom obscurity in speaking, I know not whether it could by any means be avoided or whether it was held a delight.

When I had arranged all these things as well as my strength allowed, it occurred to me that it would not be unwelcome to the learned if beneath my notes I also set those which Guido Panciroli, jurisconsult of Reggio, had written on this same book On Prayer. And I hoped the more readily that my plan would be approved because I observed that the chief care of that most distinguished man was given to expounding the obscure meanings of Tertullian, whereas I, on the contrary, had set myself rather to illustrate the historical and learned remains of this little book. It is to be lamented, however, that there has as yet been no one in Italy who, for the glory of our nation, has seen to the publishing of Panciroli's other commentaries on Tertullian. Of them we have scarcely a brief mention from Tomasini in his Life of Panciroli, from Dupin, William Cave and a few other writers; indeed it was scarcely established among them that anything of them survived. That labour of Panciroli, a most celebrated man, who won for himself a distinguished place among the learned by the praise not of jurisprudence alone but also of sacred and profane learning, was surely worthy of a better fate. And indeed I think, as Possevino too thought in his Apparatus, that those most copious commentaries on Tertullian which B. Rhenanus, Pamelius, La Cerda, Salmasius and other most learned men brought to light stood in the way of these coming forth; those, namely, by whom Panciroli's posthumous fame was to be established thought that they would spend useless labour if they set the same dishes before the palate of the learned. But Tertullian is not one to be content with few interpreters; and since his more recent interpreters were in no way deterred by the efforts of the older ones from producing their own as well, why ought this ill-advised fear to have turned the students of Panciroli from so noble a plan? It is indeed easy, when many and diverse minds come together in explaining one author, for his mind and writings to become clearer day by day, and to be freed from the darknesses flowing either from the antiquity of the times, or from the carelessness of copyists, or from the austerity of the writer. Although these things can truly be said of each of the ancients, yet they must be affirmed above all of Tertullian, whom after so many interpreters' labours we still have obscure. At the same time as Pamelius was occupied in explaining Tertullian, Panciroli too left us full commentaries on all his writings published up to his own death. Their autograph lies hidden at Reggio (Regium Lepidi), in his native city. It fell to me to see and copy only a copy of it, most accurately written, which Fr Giovanni Battista Cattaneo, an ornament of the Franciscan order of the Observance, as they call it, keeps in his library. And since it came about through his kindness that I could draw from that manuscript work whatever I pleased, I have resolved to give here also the letter prefixed to those same commentaries, for from it will be made plain what Panciroli accomplished on Tertullian. Thus, then, he writes:

Panciroli's Preface to the Reader

I judge my coming from Padua to Turin to have been fortunate chiefly for this reason, that among the other most learned men whom I found, there met me above all Vincenzo Lauro, bishop of Mondovì and apostolic nuncio of our Most Holy Lord Gregory XIII, Supreme Pontiff, to the Most Serene Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, and a cardinal versed in every kind of learning, who, while he thought me worthy of his private conversations, always made me better in learning; and just as Marcus Tullius

Cicero used to come away more learned from the side of Quintus Mucius Scaevola (in the Laelius, or On Friendship), so I, drawing not a little from his most learned discourses, went away the richer. For now he would recount the deeds done since the world was founded, now bring forth the secrets of philosophy, or obscure

authors he would explain, or he would correct a faulty reading from approved copies, or, in keeping with his pious calling, interpret some passages of the sacred scriptures. Now since he was wonderfully delighted with the writings of Tertullian (St Jerome, On Ecclesiastical Writers, on Tertullian), and, like a second Cyprian, had him daily in his hands, he grieved greatly that he was found so obscure that at times no sense at all could be drawn out of him. But since, overwhelmed by the many affairs that pressed upon him as bishop of Mondovì from his own jurisdiction, and that met him, arising on every side, as legate of the Supreme Pontiff, whether committed to him from Rome or coming from the Subalpine lands, he had no leisure for explaining this author, he sought someone else who could be equal to taking up so great a burden. He saw that to interpret a man steeped in all disciplines and most expert in the Greek language and in histories there was need of a man who had knowledge of many things, and above all of the civil law, since Tertullian himself, as Eusebius writes, Ecclesiastical History, book I, chapter 2, being a jurisconsult, inserts here and there in his writings a great many things drawn from the civil law. But although other learned men were not lacking who could have performed this more exactly, he nevertheless, promising himself more of me than I could bear, judged me fit for this task. For when he observed that I had long professed the civil law at Padua, and for some years at Turin, and not yet recognizing the slenderness of my talent, deceived, as I think, by the public office of professing entrusted to me, he judged me suitable for taking up so great a burden, as one who could interpret not only this jurisconsult, as an interpreter of the law, but also many of his more obscure passages.

This charge, then, he first offered to me; and when I refused once and again he at last pressed me, and by his authority obtained that I should take up his commission. I saw indeed that much was lacking to me, a man of slenderer learning, for explaining so great an author, and that a middling knowledge of the laws did not suffice for explaining the many things that he takes from recondite histories, from philosophy, medicine and the sacred scriptures; nor did the time permit it to one entangled in many affairs of the courts. But what I said I could not do, he believed I would not:

What was I to do? Neither was I allowed to go out from servitude, nor was it right not to acknowledge gods so present. (Virgil, Eclogues I)

It was not permitted, then, to resist him; and by obeying I preferred that he should find fault with my talent rather than my will, and that my weakness rather than my obstinacy should be blamed.

So I put my neck under the yoke, and what neither my strength allowed nor my time conveniently permitted, I began to do in spare hours. But while I humour him, I fear lest there befall me what happened to Sergius Galba, who as a private man was judged worthy of empire, but once made emperor proved unfit for it (Tacitus, Histories I, or Annals XVII). I too fear that I, who while silent seemed to him to know something, may when I speak be exposed to all as most unlearned. Yet whatever is to come, taking up his commands, what I could do by his

authority I wished to try. I found, moreover, that Tertullian, as both Lactantius Firmianus and St Jerome indicate (Lactantius Firmianus, Divine Institutes V.1; St Jerome, Letter 13 to Paulinus), is obscure in his style, since he either wants omitted words to be understood, or uses less customary ones, and even forms a new phrasing for himself. To relieve readers, I composed an index of these peculiarities, so that it may be plain to everyone in what sense he takes expressions or words. And since corrupt manuscripts bring a greater difficulty, I emended many passages, but only from those things that the same author often repeats, or that St Jerome and others after him quote. From my own head, however, I dared to change nothing beyond a letter or a syllable, and I preferred that the senses remain ambiguous rather than bring in false or foreign ones, and that something be missed rather than corrupted. Yet I left nothing untouched, and in great obscurities I thought it better to put my talent at risk than to send readers away confused. And just as Protogenes, though an excellent painter, when he could not render the foam of a panting horse, slight thing though it was, being angry with his art, flung a sponge laden with all the colours against the creature's lips and so by chance achieved what he desired (Pliny, [Natural History] XXXV.10): so I myself, while turning my mind about in many directions, thought it could come about by some effort that I might perhaps attain some sense of the author; which, among the philosophers, Averroes is judged to have done on Aristotle, and among our own, Angelo Ubaldi in explaining the Novel Constitutions of Justinian, badly translated into another language. All the histories too, which he touches upon rather than narrates, I have recounted where there was need from approved authors, so as to leave no one a scruple of doubt. Among these the book On the Soldier's Crown, To the Martyrs, On the Apparel of Women, On the Shows and the Apologeticus, but above all the little work On the Pallium, gave me no small trouble. Some of these others have explained; but what they, and what I myself have accomplished, will be for others to judge. For the rest, passing over all lighter matters and those that seemed easy, I have explained only the difficult ones; and I have distributed the works of Tertullian themselves, changing his order, into three parts according to the variety of their matter, for the convenience of students.

If, however, I shall have helped readers in anything, [let it be] credited to God, the true light of all; if the contrary, I shall impute it to my own weakness and to the easiness of him who chose a bad interpreter. Certainly we have a great author, to be read by all, and a teacher of the ancient rites of the Church, who also crushes the errors of more recent heretics, when he often teaches that the eucharist is the true body of Christ (about which, however, no one ever doubted or could doubt until Berengar), urges that the exomologesis of sins be made, indicates that offerings were customarily made for the dead, proclaims the authority of the Roman see, and confirms that the souls of the dead are purged by fire, [and confirms] fasts and other things like these, which it would be long to recount. But it is not easy to persuade the insane by reasons or authorities. These little night-labours of mine, then, you will receive kindly and take in good part. Farewell.